In this book, Jennifer Brinkerhoff compellingly explores the intersection between the online activities of diaspora communities and processes of social identity formation in relation to conflict processes, politics, and development in the homeland. Various authors in recent years have provided case studies of particular online diasporas (see, e.g., this reviewer's Transnational Muslim Politics: Reimagining the Umma, 2001, on Muslims in the United Kingdom, and Marriane Franklin's Postcolonial Politics, the Internet, and Everyday Life: Pacific Traversals Online, 2004). In Digital Diasporas, however, Brinkerhoff offers us the first thorough comparative study of diaspora groups on the Internet, allowing her to identify a number of important cross-cutting themes and findings.
The first two of the volume's eight chapters introduce a number of core analytical themes relating to the challenges and opportunities inherent in thinking about diasporic identity in the context of information technology, and also serve to familiarize the reader with key background information pertaining to the five countries whose diasporas figure in the book (Afghanistan, Egypt, Tibet, Nepal, and Somalia). In addition to dealing with a number of definitional issues, Brinkerhoff introduces the central conceptual themes on which her later analysis hangs, namely, the hybridity of identity, social capital, and social mobilization. The opening chapters conclude with an attempt to capture the factors driving the likelihood of diaspora identity mobilization, expressed in terms of costs, benefit, and perceived effectiveness. The next five chapters make varied use of five case studies (drawing on content analysis of online forum postings and interviews with the founders of these sites) in order to explore the role of online diaspora activity in the expression, negotiation, and contestation of identity and belonging; the processes through which online diasporas come to be constituted as communities through the development of norms and regulations governing their interactions; the potential of online diaspora spaces to serve as zones of conflict prevention and mitigation; the impact of online diaspora activity on homeland policies, human rights, and sovereignty; and the role of Internet-organized diasporas in delivering relief aid and economic and human development solutions to the homeland. The concluding chapter recaps the book's central findings, speculates about the future of online diasporas, and offers a number of policy recommendations for governments and intergovernmental organizations regarding the role of online diasporas.
The book offers a vivid portrait of diaspora life online and, with a few exceptions, it generally succeeds in making a case for the growing importance of these online groups across various sectors of social, political, and economic life. Brinkerhoff draws a number of important insights from her thorough analysis of online interactions, pointing out, for example, the ways in which members of religious minorities often persecuted in the homeland can, from the liberating position of diaspora and through the anonymity afforded by the Internet, openly claim an identity previously denied to them (p. 65). But she also brings out aspects of the darker side of online diasporic discourse, pointing to the fact that structures of cultural and social power relating to, for instance, gender, tribe, and ethnie still manifest themselves in the efforts of certain online diasporans to patrol and “gatekeep” the boundaries of acceptable identity expression (pp. 68, 87). One might also want to ask here about the potential for homeland state governments to strike back at diasporas engaged in online oppositional activism by threatening family members and assets that might have remained in the homeland. The author's discussion of online rites of passage (p. 125) in the context of the formation of community norms is also fascinating, showing how the acceptance of aspirant participants in these online forums often manifests itself through the routinization of insulting banter.
As with any ambitious project of this sort that pushes the envelope of current research, a few weaknesses can be identified in this book. Due to the challenges associated with measuring online diasporic impact on homeland political and economic outcomes—a point the author herself freely acknowledges (p. 209)—the significance of diaspora activity on the Internet is generally stated in terms of “potential” (p. 146). In other places, Brinkerhoff is forced to resort to frequent speculation, rather than being able to report actual observed impact: “Afghans4Tomorrow makes a very personal and emotional appeal that likely sparks the initiation and creation of communities offline” (p. 197). This latter claim also points to the need for some considerable innovation in research methodologies pertaining to online communities—namely, the development of parallel methods that can elucidate the relationship between activities and interactions online and social effects in the material world of politics.
Only a few additional points detract from this otherwise excellent and innovative study. Since the equation governing the likelihood of social mobilization stated at the outset of the volume is never operationalized later in the text, one wonders if it is really needed at all. The chapter dealing with the development of community norms does not always fully elucidate the relationship between, for example, the production of rules governing forum posts and the nature of diasporic identity. Finally, it is unclear why a couple of the case studies of diasporic relief and development groups (namely Afghans4Tomorrow and Coptic Orphans) are included since they seem primarily to describe organizations that happen to have Websites and coordinate some of their work through this medium, but who do not seem to constitute a digital diaspora proper in the sense of the other cases.
Jennifer Brinkerhoff is forging new ground with Digital Diasporas, and some future areas of growth for this research agenda are already starting to suggest themselves in connection with recent world events. The heavy use of the microblogging tool Twitter by diasporic Iranians around the disputed presidential elections in summer 2009 (by most reports, Iranians abroad were far more numerous on Twitter than actual protestors in Iran) suggests that information technology can sometimes permit a diaspora to “imagine” political participation or national co-presence in times of crisis à la Benedict Anderson's famous idiom of imagined community. Likewise, Brinkerhoff's work suggests that we will need to examine the impact of such newly popular social network sites as Facebook on diasporic identity processes. We can also see many avenues for fruitful collaboration with sociologists and anthropologists who have been exploring the role of digital technologies in the transformation of family structures and gender roles in labor diasporas (e.g., Cecilia Uy-Tioco's work on cellphone SMS messages and long-distance mothering by Filipina nannies working in North America and the Arab Gulf). This is a groundbreaking work that makes a highly significant contribution to our knowledge of online diasporas at the same time that it keys up a new and extremely fertile research agenda.
